A federal court in Norfolk threw out a lawsuit filed by Virginia Beach residents who wanted to stop or reverse a controversial wetlands project at Pleasure House Point.
Judge Elizabeth Hanes said in her opinion last month that the case is moot because the city has completed construction.
The project has been on the books since 2012, when Virginia Beach acquired 118 acres to protect it from development. The site was once a dumping ground for material dredged from the Lynnhaven Inlet.
Eight years ago, the city got a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and completed more than 90% of the design. The project then sat until late 2024, when Virginia Beach officials found resuming the work more urgent for a legal reason.
When a public agency or private developer impacts wetlands, they are required to make up for it elsewhere, using a legal mechanism called wetlands mitigation credits. The system works by earning credits traded in a “mitigation bank.”
Virginia Beach officials said they needed mitigation credits for infrastructure projects around the city, including several under the Flood Protection Program.
Work at Pleasure Point began in March 2025 and included clearing more than 5,000 trees to make way for the restored wetlands.
That angered many nearby residents, including four who filed suit against the Army Corps last May, representing themselves. They said the agency’s federal permitting of the project was unlawful because of impacts to the environment and the public.
“I’m just heartbroken by what’s happened here,” Kim Mayo, one of the plaintiffs, previously told WHRO. “It just doesn’t make sense to me on any level. The community opposed this. And it fell on deaf ears.”
The suit claimed the project has caused “irreversible damage to environmental resources and habitat,” such as allegedly dredging through oyster reefs and destroying bird nesting sites.
Plaintiffs also said they were harmed by the project preventing access to and enjoyment of the public park.
The Corps pushed back in legal filings, arguing the residents had no standing to file the lawsuit and calling their claims “factually unadorned legal conclusions.”
Earlier this year, the residents unsuccessfully attempted to add the city of Virginia Beach as a defendant.
Judge Hanes recently granted the Corps’ motion to dismiss the case, noting that the city has completed the project.
“What the Administrative Procedure Act surely does not allow the Court to do is order the Corps to take over the Project—located on land the Corps does not own—and laboriously undo actions taken by Virginia Beach in order to restore the relevant area to its prior state,” Hanes wrote.
Resident Walt Stone said in an email that the group plans to appeal the decision. The project “remains a live controversy” and “plaintiffs remain injured,” he said.
